Lip-smacking miscellany of a country
store in Clayton (above) and a roadside
stand in Alto (upper right) belies the hard
row that dirt farmers of north Georgia still
hoe. Vendor Tommy Wagner, along with
seven brothers and sisters, helped plant
and harvest the produce he sells. Drought
last year wiped out 45 acres of sweet corn,
and now "we're barely feeding ourselves,"
his father asserts. "Everybody else around
here has another little job somewhere."
Indeed, only 3 percent of Georgians are
farmers. But the Wagners persist. "It's like
gambling," Mr. Wagner says. "You get
hooked on working the land."
230
The water, pumped from aquifers 20 to
1,000 feet deep, is setting off another agri
cultural revolution hereabouts. But like
many other farmers, John hasn't purchased
the costly irrigation pipes yet. "We just trust
in the Lord to bring us water."
John may well change his mind. By fall
one of the worst droughts in living memory
had withered his crops. This, plus low prices
resulting from bumper crops elsewhere, left
John and his neighbors in the red and
spurred unprecedented action: Georgia
farmers went on strike.
"We hate that word," John told me later.
"Farmers think labor strikes cause our infla
tion problems. But something just has to
change-for us."
In December, instead of plowing his
National Geographic, August 1978